Yaddo: A creative history.
Item
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Title
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Yaddo: A creative history.
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Identifier
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AAI3187380
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identifier
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3187380
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Creator
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Alexander, Ben.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William Kelly
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American | History, United States | American Studies | Biography
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Abstract
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The following pages reveal what is, in most regards, an untold story. The focus of this story is a four-hundred acre estate located in Saratoga Springs, New York. Since the mid-1880s this estate has been known as "Yaddo." Since 1926, Yaddo has functioned as an artists' community. In the words of John Cheever, "The forty [sic] or so acres on which the studios and principle buildings of Yaddo stand have seen more distinguished activity in the arts than any other piece of ground in the English-speaking community." Between 1926 and 1950, the historical focus of my study of Yaddo as a creative institution, Yaddo welcomed, among others, Newton Arvin, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, John Cheever, Aaron Copland, Malcolm Cowley, Carson McCullers, Katherine Anne Porter, and Clyfford Still.;My interest in Yaddo's history, however, reaches further back in time than its development as a creative institution. Any discussion of Yaddo's past needs to begin with the lives of its founders, New York banker and philanthropist Spencer Trask, and his wife Katrina. I therefore begin with an analysis of their lives at Yaddo. My study of the Trasks argues that during the 1880s and 1890s their shared interest in challenging Victorian restraint combined with unimaginable personal tragedy as well as more general fin de siecle anxieties and, ultimately, resulted in a dramatic worldview that gave shape to an astonishing posthumous gift. In 1900, the Trasks determined to bequeath their entire estate as well as their collective legacies to transforming Yaddo into a center of creative activity.;The lives of the Trasks, therefore, provide important context for my consideration of Yaddo's history as a creative institution. I give close attention to how the Trasks' vision interacted with, and was influenced by, larger historical pressures, especially the Depression, World War Two, and, finally, The Cold War. Within this historical framework, however, I have worked to incorporate the compelling succession of creative struggle, personal intrigue, as well as high jinx of every imaginable variety, which inevitably must remain at the center of any conversation about Yaddo.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
